River Test
Broadlands
A wonderful opportunity. I was invited to fish at Broadlands. This is a series of beats on the lower Test. I'd fished this delightful river before, but never as far downstream. I was intrigued as to what the river would look like.
The river is a single stream here. No carriers to spread the weight of water. The river keeper neatly described it as a chalk river rather than a chalk stream. There were sections of very fast water and other segments that were very deep and then there were the fast and deep portions. All very different from the classic chalk stream and requiring a different approach to match.
The weather was delightful. We had missed the main mayfly hatch, and saw only a handful of duns and spinners. As is often the case, the trout were a bit lethargic after weeks of gorging on the big flies. But there were yellow sallies and terrestrials and a few fish could be tempted. In addition to the brown trout, there were chub spawning. This is a spectacular sight and it attracted more than a curious angler. Rainbow trout, ghostlike, stationed themselves downstream of the mass of chub and dined on the fishes' eggs. A little bit of Alaska arrived in Hampshire?